Sam Allardyce’s back five failed to keep Tottenham’s potent strike force at bay but poor recruitment has been the problemAs kick-off approached the strains of Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds drifted over the sound system. Maybe it was the acoustics, but the lyrics sounded particularly plaintive.By the final whistle no song would have been sufficiently forlorn to match the mood as wholesale boos signalled that Leeds had just experienced football’s equivalent of stepping off the edge of the world. Continue reading...
Everton have relegation battle in their own hands, Aston Villa fans face a dilemma and there will be emotional farewells galoreFor the third time in 29 years, Everton’s Premier League status is on the line on the final day at Goodison Park although, unlike against Wimbledon in 1994 or Coventry in 1998, survival is in their own hands. The task sounds straightforward enough: beat a Bournemouth team with nothing to play for and a 70th consecutive season in the top flight is guaranteed. Everton, though, have an aversion to the straightforward. Sean Dyche does not have a decent striker available with Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who has been integral to the team’s recent improvement, hamstrung again. Unless Vitaliy Mykolenko recovers from a...
Manager asks his players to channel spirit of Bielsa but Leeds will regret not taking 2-0 lead during draw with NewcastleWelcome to Elland Road, abandon hope of a quiet afternoon all ye who enter. Sam Allardyce had called on his Leeds players to channel the spirit of Marcelo Bielsa on Saturday lunchtime and in terms of the chaotic and nerve-shredding brand of football for which the Argentinian’s reign at Elland was often notable, he got the response he wanted.It was unlike an afternoon anyone would have anticipated with Allardyce in the dugout. The polar opposite of Bielsa in so many ways, Allardyce’s first home game in the dugout had all the hallmarks of the man who guided the club back...
The new manager saw his team offer a dogged defensive display at the Etihad that bodes well for their final three gamesSam Allardyce has waited two years to manage a competitive match, and some might suggest that wait will go on for another week. His new Leeds side suffered at the hands of Manchester City at times but there were, in the end, positives to cling on to.The 68-year-old only had three days on the training ground to impart his methods. It would appear those sessions were attack v defence to prepare them for facing an inevitable afternoon of City domination at the Etihad but Leeds used maximum effort, Allardyce’s minimum requirement. Continue reading...
As a radio co-host Allardyce was far from tactically rigid and it is delicious to imagine him beating Pep Guardiola in his first gameA couple of weeks before the start of the season, the Guardian Football Weekly panel were asked for our most outlandish predictions for the season. Barry Glendenning suggested Liverpool wouldn’t make the top four. Jonathan Wilson thought there was a good chance of Roy Hodgson coming out of retirement and ensuring Crystal Palace’s survival. Philippe Auclair was confident Chelsea would spend half a billion pounds on attacking midfielders, sack Thomas Tuchel and then Graham Potter and bring in Super Frank Lampard to oversee a 100% losing record.These predictions all seemed far-fetched, but not ridiculous. It was then...